Customer Reviews

A Sunday in the Country (Deluxe Letterboxed Edition)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Every frame of this film is like watching an Impressionist canvas in motion. This gentle, poignant character study of an elderly painter in the early 1900s is packed with beauty, insight and three-dimensional characters. Louis Ducreux, a French stage star who made his movie debut here at age 73, is subtle, compelling and deeply moving, as are the rest of the actors. The exquisite sound track (based mostly on the chamber music of Gabriel Faure) enhances the sunny yet wistful tone of the film. It's defintely not a movie for thrill-seekers, but for those seeking a two-hour vacation in a slower, gentler and lovelier world, it's a gem.

Just want to corroborate what the earlier 2 reviews state and to add that on the dvd is an audio commentary track by the director, a fact I had not seen published anywhere and did not actually discover until I purchased the dvd. Lovely transfer, lovely film.

This is a lovely film. I warn you that some may find it too slow because it takes a very painterly look at the microcosm of this aging man's world. If you can lose yourself in the art of it though, the pace will be just right. One of the people I saw this film with in the theater found it very depressing because of the old age approaching death aspect. Although the elderly painter is certainly moving in that direction, this film is much more about how his art is integral to his life and how his family fits into this scheme when they visit him one Sunday in his country studio and home. If you are an artist or art lover, you will adore this film for the visual feast that it is.

Since the first opening shot, you will be conveyed into a magical world at the beginning of the XX century, where the impressive talent of one of the most remarkable French directors ever born - Bertrand Tavernier - renders his personal homage, not only to Jean Renoir's "A day in the country" ; but the Impressionist art of painting with Manet as the principal starring.

The fabulous images, arresting landscapes, lavish photograph hover the whole picture; around the lives and times of an elderly widowed French artist who never the made the grade in order to achieve a major receptivity into his artistic circle. He is visited by his short family a Sunday and so we will witness with astonishing accuracy and fluid camerawork, the intimacies of this family. There are smart flashbacks around Irene his vanished wife and the peaceful way of living of the last days of the XIX Century.

The script flows with organic majesty and marvelous dignity. Tavernier achieved a genuine jewel of infinite carats.

By no reason you should miss this treasured film of the Eighties. One of my favorite films to watch over and over again.

Proof that sometimes the simplest approaches can achieve the greatest results. An old man (played by Louis Ducreux), a successful Impressionistic painter in turn-of-the-century France, is visited one Sunday by his son (Michel Aumont) and his daughter (Sabine Azema). Over the course of the movie we see Ducreux's supreme disappointment in his dull, overly careful, and plodding son, and his delight with his enthusiastic, live-wire daughter, who has rarely come to visit him. The film is beautifully photographed, as pleasantly eye-filling as any Impressionistic painting might hope to be. There is not a lot of plot or action, but the simple unfolding of peaceful events over the course of what appears to be a typical Sunday afternoon in the spring countryside reveals not only a serene setting, but an excellent work of visual filmmaking. A rich movie-watching experience.

This beautiful film is also a meditation on beauty and regret. The beauty is obvious - it's pre-1914 France, a Sunday in the country, and the landscape, clothes, food and people are gorgeous. And yet the patriarch of the family is a painter who rejected the Impressionists and is now wondering if that was the right thing to do. And so the theme of regret enters the movie. Then comes his son and his wife and their children. The son, despite once being a painter himself - he gave it up to avoid being his father's rival - is a solid member of the bourgeoisie and clearly a disappointment to his father. The son knows this and regrets it.

Then the old man's daughter comes. Everyone loves her, including the children. The scene where she plays a game with the children that ends when the parents want to join in is a very well-observed one. Somehow the son and his wife are cut out of that joy of childhood, and they regret that. And we find that the daughter has her own complicated life back in Paris, too. The children are the ones that don't regret. One is tempted to say that that is what defines them as not yet adults.

At the end of the film is a beautiful scene of the landscape that serves as a reminder of the beauty around us. And yet I wonder if the old man would look at it with regret, since the Impressionists have already painted it so well. And yet the beauty remains.

This film has sentimentality for family in both a tender and comic sense. The beauty of the filming is difficult to appreciate unless you love impressionist painting, is enjoyed even more if you are reasonably well aware of the famous pieces of the period. The larger the screen the more beautiful the show.

The film is breathtakingly beautiful making me wish to spend time in the country in France. In an old quaint house surrounded by nature. You can almost smell the fresh air and the appertifs they sip under the portico with the trees rustling in the breeze. The movie centers around the aging patriarch of the family. His wife has passed on and he keeps his lonliness at bay with the help of a housekeeper and his consistant Sunday visits from his ploddingly staid son and wife, two grandboys who much rather play together than be with the adult and one granddaughter who seems somewhat shy and clinging toward her mother. The daughter in law seems also somewhat ordinary with a need for chruch and religion in her life. Than in comes his other child, a daughter, quite the opposite of her brother, full of life, passion and a great desire for the country. She has brought her auto, which was a big thing. The movie is set in pre-WW1 France. I forgot to mention the main character paints, he seems to paint alcoves of the room, pieces of furniture, indoors kind of stuff. The daughter wakes him up out of his complacency, also waking up the rest of the Sunday family visitors. She gets them out of their lethargy and moves them to action. She is the first to leave but her prescence lingers. When the movie ends you have a strong feeling that the main character has made a shift from painting only objects that grace his indoor sanctuary.
Lisa Nary

I had hunted for this movie for some time - thinking that it was named "A Day in the Country!" I remember that when I initially saw it in a theater that it made a distinct impression(!) on me. it was less the melancolly story than the visually beautiful French countryside and farm where the movie takes place. It is not unlike experiencing an Monet painting comming to life! One of the most beautifully filmed, relaxing movies that I have ever viewed.

I'm very happy to find this on DVD. I am older, and my eyes aren't as good as they used to be: the higher quality of this DVD really makes the difference.